


dreamer

by sweetestsight



Series: parallax [7]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: M/M, Solarpunk AU, Telepathy, the whump intensifies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 10:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19271518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestsight/pseuds/sweetestsight
Summary: A handful of lyrics drift to mind and then out just as fast, but he lets the melody roll around his head for a minute. He thinks of Freddie singing, sitting on a pile of oriental rugs in the loading bay, the ship's loading ramp open to the desert sun. He thinks of Brian napping with his head on Freddie’s lap. He thinks of John stepping inside, taking them all in, thinks of him meeting Roger’s eyes, his gaze heavy and solemn for reasons Roger couldn't understand at the time. The weight of the universe's silence is significant, but the weight of the memory is heavier still.





	dreamer

“What can you tell me about the Star’s Needle?”

Clay’s voice breaks the silence; Clay, not the youngest of them but perhaps the most innocent, in an odd sort of way. Out of the 98 they’d started out with only 18 had been dropped off at outposts along the way, the rest of the passengers buckled up safely below deck save for Clay and Spike, who’d made it their personal mission to pester Brian and Roger until they were allowed onto the bridge. Only one stop remains ahead of them, and out of every person remaining on the ship Clay is the only one never to have been there; Clay, who’s taken it upon himself in his recent freedom from the mines to free those who still live at risk of the same fate.

Roger can get behind that. It’s a noble goal. Still, there’s a heavy silence to the ship as they drift closer and closer to the spinning chaos that is Regulus, and his question has an odd sense of foreboding to it. He chooses to let it hover in the air without answer, his eyes trained on the darkness outside. The outer belt is a long, long way from Deneb’s immediate reaches, and that should afford him some comfort. It doesn’t.

“What?” Spike answers finally. “You mean you don’t know about it?”

“Of course I know about it,” Clay replies testily. “Star’s Needle is a household name. I’ve heard they have songs about it on Sirius.”

“They have songs about everything on Sirius,” Roger mutters. “Believe me.”

Behind him at the navigation console Brian snorts.

“The Star’s Needle is a planet within a binary system,” Clay says insistently, eager to show how much he really does know. “It’s a single body orbiting two stars which form the system’s gravitational center. The Star’s Needle is the third planet in the system. Regulus 4-9 are uninhabitable, and Regulus 10 is a secondary binary star which orbits the same path as the planets. It’s a rare phenomenon. In proper conditions it’s possible to view four stars rising on Regulus 3’s horizon.”

“How was that, Brian?” Roger calls. “Enough jargon for you?”

“Nearly enough, yeah,” Brian replies, voice genuinely kind. “That’s pretty good, Clay. Were you ever in navigation?”

“I studied it at Imperial for eight months,” Clay says proudly, and when Roger blinks again he sees a much younger Brian giving him that same look years ago, Regulus 3’s sand sticking in his hair and those four suns rising behind him.

“Ten minutes to the ion cloud,” Brian says to Roger, and Roger nods vaguely back at him.

“Time for a check in?”

“I’ll hail him,” Brian says, moving to the communication desk. “Alright, Clay. Eight months at Imperial ever tell you why they call it the Star’s Needle?”

“Because it’s threading the needle between the two star sets in its system.”

“And why’s that important?”

Clay hesitates, then doesn’t speak.

Brian tilts his head as he tunes the radio. “If you want to know what it’s like on the Star’s Needle then the first thing you need to do is understand that. The orbiting star pair rounds the central binaries every 2,000 Old World years. Regulus 3’s orbit is about 40.2. When the planet finally threads the figurative needle the whole process will take a significant amount of time.” He taps the microphone in front of himself. “Queen to Transporter 67B, come in. Over.”

“What’s so important about that?” Clay asks.

Roger rolls his eyes. “In layman’s terms, when the planet is between the four suns it won’t experience night. As soon as two suns go down the other two will come up. It’ll be getting full sunlight constantly.”

“So?”

“So the atmospheric temperature will rise to the point it can’t support crops anymore, dipshit,” Spike pipes up on Roger’s left. The two of them share a tired look; only locals get it.

“Why’d they terraform the planet in the first place then? Why waste the money if it’s going to be uninhabitable in a few decades?”

“Didn’t you learn shit in school? There’s loads of minerals below the planet’s surface. The plan is to mine them all before 40 years is up and then ditch the place.”

“Seems like a good plan,” Clay mutters.

Roger holds his tongue. There’s no use explaining to the kid exactly why the plan is flawed; that the people of Regulus 3 have far larger aspirations than mining up minerals for some fat cat in Deneb until the day they die; that the fat cats in Deneb took notice and now there’s no money flowing into the planet at all; that the people there can either mine or leave, and more often than not they choose to just get out if they can lest they face a slow starvation several decades down the line. They carry a certain pride in the face of certain doom, but it’s only to hide the desperation.

Of course slavers would take advantage of that fact.

There’s no use explaining it to an outsider, though. There was barely any use even explaining it to Brian all those years ago, though something about him was different. Maybe it was the fact that he was there at all. Navigation students rarely chose to come to Regulus if they could help it.

_It interests me, is all,_ he’d told Roger in a diner in his hometown while neatly working his way through a pile of waffles. _The situation here is completely unique, and in my opinion it’s one of the biggest failings of our government in history. The fact that they’re not doing anything…_ He’d paused then and pushed a curl, then-short and flopping into his eyes, back off his forehead. He’d licked his lips thoughtfully before continuing. _What’s the point in studying something I already know about, anyway? That’s not much of a learning experience._

Roger had almost bristled at that one. His planet isn’t a _learning experience;_ his planet is a rich man’s mistake, an experiment in obedience gone horribly wrong, and that’s a fact he’s fiercely protective of. It isn’t here for people to gawk at.

People like Brian, though. People like Brian got a free pass.

Brian was kind. He’d arrived with gentle eyes and a quiet inquisitiveness that had pulled Roger right in; Brian who had no home planet of his own, Brian who was born among the stars and possibly of them. He could’ve been. Roger had no proof either way.

It was only a week later that Roger showed him the rusted hunk of steel he called a ship, the Queen in her darkest and dirtiest stages of life, and after that it was just a matter of time before the two of them finished spit-and-prayers repairs and disappeared together. Everyone knew it.

“Queen to Transporter 67B, come in please. Queen to Transporter 67B. Over.”

Brian’s voice is gentle as always, but it’s quiet enough on the bridge that somehow it makes Roger startle. As the silence stretches Spike sends him a cautious look. Roger studiously ignores him.

After a long breathless moment the speaker crackles. “Transporter 67B to Queen,” Freddie’s voice replies finally. “I still think six-hour check-ins are a bit superfluous, darling.”

All four people on the bridge pretend not to let out a sigh of relief at that. When Roger spares a glance back at where Brian is hunched over the navigation deck it’s to see him hiding a smile behind the radio microphone. “Sparrow, six hours is the most we can allow. Given current galactic winds and the warp capacities of modern-day military ships, that timeframe would still allow us to mobilize rebel ships within your area and intercept—”

“Yes, yes, I know, Mr. Best-Navigator-In-The-Galaxy. Thank you.”

Roger can’t quite stifle a grin at that. “He’s gonna work himself into an ulcer, Sparrow,” he calls over his shoulder. Brian shoots him a playful glare.

“Believer, dear, you really need to learn how to take a deep breath,” Freddie chides. “I’m fine. I’m safe. We’ll be on Alnitak 2 within the half hour.”

Brian nods a few times to himself. “Send word as soon as you’ve landed, alright? We won’t hear until we’re through the ion cloud, but we—”

“I’ll send word but darling, I’m already in rebel space. We’re practically home free.”

“Practically isn’t good enough,” Roger mutters, and Spike grimaces in solidarity beside him.

“Listen, it’s neither here nor there. I’ve actually got news for you this time, and Dreamer, you better hear it, too,” Freddie says.

Roger turns to meet Brian’s worried eyes, warm hazel standing out over dark bags. “What is it?” Brian says.

“It’s—well. There’s been a change in status in our ransoms. His is no longer listed.”

Roger frowns. “Whose? Mine?”

“No, not yours. It’s…well, it’s Little One’s.”

Brian’s face goes instantly blank and Roger feels all the breath knocked from his lungs.

“That’s not to say something’s happened,” Freddie rushes to say. “It could mean anything. It could mean they knew he was in the mines and now that everyone’s gone he’s been presumed dead.”

Roger swallows. “Freddie, if that was true your ransom wouldn’t be listed anymore either.”

“Not necessarily, right? I’d been out of the mines for weeks. There was no existing record of me down there.”

Roger wants to point out the holes in that logic: that there had been no record of either of them being down there, or else they would’ve been snatched up and turned in for a ransom before they’d mined their first stone; that slavers don’t keep records and never have. There’s one simple reason why John is no longer a wanted man, but he can’t bear to even think it.

He meets Brian’s eyes and sees the utter despair there, and he knows better than to tell Freddie that.

“You’re right,” he says, voice hoarse. “Yeah. That must be it. Keep your ears open on Orion, okay? If he’s making his way back to us that’s the first place he’ll try to go.”

“Yes, I’ve got it. I’ll let you know immediately if I hear anything.”

Roger nods to himself. He re-centers himself quickly. Freddie needs him to be strong for now. “I love you.”

“Love you, Dreamer, Believer. I love you both.”

“Love you, Sparrow,” Brian says with the same light vowels Roger had grown accustomed to hearing on Orion. “Safe travels.”

“And you.”

Brian holds the microphone in hand for a long moment before finally hanging it up on its hook. He clears his throat quickly, not meeting Roger’s eyes as he heads quickly out of the bridge and below deck.

Roger sighs as he turns forward again.

“It’s a cute name you got for him,” Spike offers quietly, breaking the silence.

Roger frowns, turning. “What?”

“Sorry if I’m overstepping. I just think it’s nice. Odd, but nice. _Sparrow,_ ” he says, trying those light vowels on for size.

“I know it’s odd,” Roger replies. “Terra Nova myths of some sort, if you can believe it. Primus has got whole songs about four travelers finding the promised land. I guess those nicknames just kind of stuck to us after long enough on Alnitak.”

“Four travelers?”

“Yeah. Dreamer, that’s me. They never tell me why. Believer is Brian, and I’m guessing it’s because he’s the only one who really thinks there even is a promised planet out there somewhere. Little One…” he starts, then trails off.

That’s too painful right now.

_You know what I see when I look at you?_

_What, Freddie?_

John’s eyes were always crinkled with laughter every time he looked at Roger in the very early days. They always had some inside joke to share, no matter what was going on. From the very first day it was like that, even when Roger was too stuck in his own pride to see a blessing when it was handed to him in platform heels and dirty jeans.

_You need an engineer,_ Freddie had supplied, and he’d been right. _You can’t exactly turn him down._ He’d been right about that, too.

Months later, sitting in the loading bay of the ship, the ramp open to let the arid musk of the desert in, a blanket below them and candles lit because the bulbs hadn’t been replaced yet, Freddie had gently traced the lines of John’s hands and spoken softly to fill the space between the four of them.

_When I look at you I see a big soul trying to be small,_ Freddie murmured. _There’s nothing wrong with that, darling. Big or small, it has nothing to do with the strength of your voice. It has nothing to do with the size of your heart. You may be our little one but something tells me you have all the strength in the universe at your disposal._

Roger shakes the memory away. “They’re just nicknames, anyway,” he mutters. “Don’t even ask me why of all things Freddie got a fucking bird.”

Spike is silent at that, and Roger thinks he’s just turning that thought over until he looks up and is met with a slightly incredulous stare. “Roger,” Spike says, “It’s not a bird.”

“Sparrows are birds. Little brown buggers from the Old World. I’ve seen pictures.”

“It’s not ‘Sparrow,’ nimwit. You really don’t know the old language?”

Roger rolls his eyes. “I cut out of uni before we got to the classics.”

“It’s not _Sparrow,_ Roger. _Spero,_ ” he says slowly, annunciating the vowels. “S-P-E-R-O. Didn’t you ever think to ask him?”

“Course I did! He was always so secretive about these things. It isn’t my fault!”

Now it’s Spike’s turn to roll his eyes. “What do I know, anyway?” he mutters. “All I am is a miner.”

“You’re not.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not just a _fucking miner._ You’re a shit miner, in fact. You should do something else.”

Spike does turn that one over. “Thanks,” he huffs finally. “I think, anyway.”

They watch the stars drift by outside, ship still continuing on its silent course. The stars call back memories of the candles that night and John and Freddie’s whispers drift back to him, desert stretching before him like some great sea. The Alnitak-2 moon had cast it in shades of blue deep enough that Roger could almost pretend it was Virida for a moment.

“What’s it mean?” he asks quietly. “Spero,” he clarifies, rolling the vowels across his tongue.

Spike clears his throat, a nervous sound. “It means hope,” he says. “It’s no wonder that your Freddie was given that name, if you’ll beg my pardon for saying so. You seem to do a lot of hoping for him.”

Roger huffs defensively. “Yeah, well. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.”

“I never said that it was.”

The control console beeps as the instruments suddenly begin whirring, spitting out random numbers at rapid-fire.

“That’d be the ion cloud,” Clay says helpfully. “Interesting bit of the galaxy, this.”

Roger rolls his eyes. “We need Brian up here. Fetch him, will you?”

Clay gets up quickly and jogs out the door.

“Why didn’t you just page him?” Spike mutters.

Roger shrugs. “I needed a minute of peace.”

Spike snorts.

“It is an interesting bit of space, though. He wasn’t wrong about that. Brian used to always try to drag us out this way.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm. How many songs from Sirius do you know?”

“Pretty few.”

“How many?”

“None.”

“Hmm.” A handful of lyrics drift to mind and then out just as fast, but he lets the melody roll around his head for a minute. He thinks of Freddie singing, sitting on a pile of oriental rugs in the loading bay, the ramp open to the desert sun. He thinks of Brian napping with his head on Freddie’s lap. He thinks of John stepping inside, taking them all in, thinks of him meeting Roger’s eyes, his gaze heavy and solemn, and the pain and anger that he could be _gone,_ that he could be in the clutches of the same bastards who’d let Roger’s homeworld burn, nearly makes him dizzy. He could burn the galaxy down just for that. He really could. He could—

_Shh, sleep._

The thought comes out of quite literally nowhere.

_No more anger sleep bed time good calm warm sleep Roger shh you’re keeping me up_

With it comes a wave of comfort and tiredness as gentle as the sea and just as grey-green; the smell of honey and warmth surrounds him.

The shock of it cuts through his anger like a knife, and just as fast as it came it’s gone.

“You alright, mate?” Spike asks. “You look a little pale.”

Roger meets his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to speak.

“Roger?”

The whirring of instruments turns abruptly into wailing.

“It’s not supposed to be doing that, is it?”

Footsteps pound closer and then there are hands land on his shoulders. He can tell without looking that it’s Brian. He feels a jolt of sudden panic that doesn’t seem to be his own, but with the way it’s urging him to get up he barely has time to think about it.

_Up up up up up up up up up up up up—_

“Rog, get up.”

“Yeah,” he says, brushing Brian off and standing quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. That’s the overload alarm. We’ve lost an engine.”

“Is that bad?” Spike asks flatly.

“It’s not good. We’ve still got the two but—”

“We’ve run off course,” Brian finishes. “I shouldn’t have left. One slip-up and it’s nearly impossible to—”

“Find us a way out, then!” A new alarm starts wailing and he swears. “I’m getting some sort of electrical interference.”

“Yeah, we’re caught in some sort of a solar storm here. Gun it, we need to move.”

“We can’t—”

“ _Go,_ Roger,” Brian says, voice pinched. He points at the window. “That cluster right there. Gun it and just go. We need to set her down somewhere and assess damage or else we’re getting nowhere.”

Spike looks between the two of them, wide-eyed. “Damage?”

“We’re going to lose a second engine in this,” Roger snaps, redirecting the ship. “Fuck. I don’t even know if we can get out of it.”

“Look, it’s better than staying here. The engines aren’t going to be able to handle this for extended periods of time.”

“We overload them breaking out of this and we’re dead in the water.”

“I’m not getting fucking stranded out here,” Spike snaps.

“We can’t—Roger, do it. We have no other option right now. Do you trust me?”

_Do you trust me?_

_Can I ask that you trust me?_

_Of course you trust me. Don’t you, darling?_

Roger swallows and points them toward the new heading, jamming the throttle down. The ship creaks and lurches forward.

The radio crackles, and Roger sees Brian’s head whip toward it in his periphery.

_“—to Queen. Transport—to Queen, do you copy?!”_

Brian all but runs over and scoops the microphone up. “Freddie? Can you hear us?”

_“—they’ve—”_ Freddie gets out, his voice wobbling. _“—I can’t just—understand, okay? I—”_

“Freddie, love, we’re making a pit stop. I’m sorry. It’s gonna be okay, alright? We’ll make some mild repairs and be back up in a jiffy.”

A long burst of static greets them before Freddie speaks again. _“They’ve got John.”_

That makes Roger turn finally, only to find Brian staring back with wide eyes. Time stops between the two of them; the alarms fade away as Brian slowly clicks the button on the microphone. “What?” he says.

_“I can’t leave him. I’m going to—there just to—do, and I don’t expect you to—”_

“Freddie, do not go to him,” Brian says quickly. “Do not do that. Wait for us. It’s a trap. Do not go after him, do you copy? Give us six hours or so and we’ll—”

_“—that he’s hurt and I—anything. He’d do the same—”_

The connection goes to static again, then dies.

“Roger, you need to set us down,” Spike says loudly. “Guys, come on.”

Brian is still watching him, his eyes completely blank.

“Roger,” Spike says again, louder.

Roger grits his teeth and turns back to the controls. Yet another alarm begins beeping, red lights flashing as the aft engine overheats and shuts down. “Shit,” he mutters.

“Can we make it?”

“Of course we can still make it,” Roger snaps. “Of course we can. Brian?”

Somehow he can tell Brian is focusing on him; he has no idea how, but he can tell, just like he can hear his voice over the ship’s alarms. “What do you need?” Brian murmurs.

“I need my navigator,” he says, a little too loud and more panicked than he’d like.

For a long moment Brian says nothing, and then suddenly he’s at Roger’s side. “Right here,” he says, gesturing as they approach a system. “Fourth from the sun. That one. Water landing.”

“Can it handle that?” Spike asks.

Roger doesn’t answer and grabs the ship’s comms. “Everybody hold on,” he says. “We’ve got a bumpy landing coming.”

The planet grows alarmingly quickly as they speed closer. Blue fills the windows. The planet is blue, blue the way the skies are supposed to be, blue blue blue.

He feels Brian’s hand against his arm, holding onto him tightly.

“Brace for impact,” he says into the comms.

Something— _something—_ nudges into his mind, something warm and oddly familiar. He smells oranges.

_Love you both can’t leave him love you it’ll be okay I love—_

“In five,” he says. “Four, three, two—”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I'm still alive. I've been starting an internship though and I've been quite busy. Sorry about that!! 
> 
> We're nearing the end, people! Any ideas on what's going on with all of this telepathy stuff? 
> 
> My tumblr is justqueenthoughts if you want to chat there! I know some people were asking <3


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